Key facts
- Style
- My despot (Δέσποτά μου), Your Majesty (Ἡ βασιλεία σου), My/our Authentopoulos (Ὁ αὐθεντόπουλός μου/μας)
- Member of
- Byzantine Imperial Family
- Seat
- Constantinople , Morea , Thessaloniki , Selymbria
- Appointer
- Byzantine emperor
- Term length
- Life tenure
- First holder
- Béla-Alexios
- Final holder
- Demetrios and Thomas Palaiologos
- Abolished
- 29 May 1460
- Succession
- First
via Wikipedia infobox
~16 min read
Article
Despot or despotes was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent of the Byzantine emperor.
From Byzantium it spread throughout the late medieval Balkans and was also granted in the states under Byzantine cultural influence, such as the Latin Empire, the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Serbian Empire and its successor states (Bulgarian and Serbian: деспот, romanized: despót), and the Empire of Trebizond. With the political fragmentation of the period, the term gave rise to several principalities termed "despotates" which were ruled either as independent states or as appanages by princes bearing the title of despot; most notably the Despotate of Epirus, the Despotate of the Morea, the Despotate of Dobruja and the Serbian Despotate.